Herbert Butterfield once wrote of the habit of his fellow English Protestants “to hold some German up their sleeves … and at appropriate moments to strike the unwary Philistine on the head with this secret weapon, the German scholar having decided in a final manner whatever point may have been at issue.” Some Anglo-American Protestants today have a similar habit of holding a secret Dutchman up their sleeves, and woe to that Philistine suddenly confronted with this formidable weapon. The secret Dutchman is Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920), one of the great polymaths in the history of the Netherlands – a theologian and philosopher, journalist and educator, churchman and statesman of astonishing accomplishment. He was the author of more than forty books and untold hundreds of articles. He served for nearly half a century as editor-in-chief of both the Dutch daily Standaard and the weekly Hearaut.